Announcement: Website Redesign (+ signed cookbook giveaway)!

I am so excited to FINALLY be sharing our brand new website design with you! Believe it or not, my husband and I started this process over a year and a half ago. For reasons you really don’t want me to get into (basically one problem after another), it has taken forever and a day for this much-needed facelift to finally come to fruition. It has honestly taken so long that we’ve already drafted another redesign in our heads so expect to see more tweaks to this new layout as time goes on! In the meantime though we’d love to get your thoughts on how it looks and all the new functionality (see below for details) so please be sure to drop us a line to let us know!

To celebrate this momentous occasion I’m going to give away 3 signed (and personalized) copies of my #1 New York Times Best Selling Cookbook today! So don’t forget to enter at the bottom after you read about all the cool new features you’ll find on the new blog! :)

First, just to recap, here is the dramatic before and after!

The Evolution of the Blog

New School Lunch Idea Gallery

Aside from the aesthetics, we’re hoping you guys are going to dig some of the new features including our brand new School Lunch Idea Gallery where you can sort by dietary needs such as Dairy Free, Egg Free, Gluten Free, Peanut/Tree Nut Free and Vegetarian AND flag and print your favorites. Holler! :) This is an easy way to make and print a school lunch meal plan for the week. You could even get your little ones involved to help make the selections.

New School Lunch Idea Gallery

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New Recipe Gallery

For a more visual experience, we have a new colorful Recipe Gallery that uses the same cool dietary needs and photo flagging features as the school lunch list!

Here’s what you can do:

Search by category – Think dinner, salad, slow cooker recipes, etc.

Search by dietary restriction – Want to see only egg-free or dairy-free recipes?

Perform a text search – Want to know what you can do with that spinach or kale you bought at the farmers market?

Combine all of these search methods – Looking for egg-free dinners containing kale?

The Old Recipe Index Lives!

We actually briefly removed our old text Recipe Index when we added the new one above, but (based on your comments) quickly realized how many people use and like our old school recipe index, so it is back and here to stay! It has recipes listed by name in alphabetical order so it is easy and fast to use on a smartphone without having to wait for pictures to load. Note it is only updated through 1/30/15 right now, but that will be fixed very soon.

The Old School Recipe Index

All the New Site Features

Here’s a full list of all the fun new features – please don’t forget to give us your feedback on everything and also enter my cookbook giveaway below!

As you can see, the site now has a new clean look with a much smaller, consolidated menu bar.

The site is also now mobile friendly, which includes an easy to use pop-out mobile menu (for smartphones and portrait orientation on tablets).

There is a new featured image slider on the home page to highlight articles or announcements.

The new Recipe Gallery allows you to search with photos and gives you the ability to filter by categories, dietary restrictions, and text (in case you’re looking for recipes containing a specific ingredient).

There is now the ability to flag your favorite recipes or school lunches so you can view or print them – a great way to make your weekly meal plan! Note these favorites may or may not be saved for you next session depending on your browser settings.

We’d absolutely love your feedback on all these changes and also what more you’d like to see in the future – please take a moment to share your candid thoughts with us!

I also want to quickly give a big warm shoutout to my husband Jason (and his tech help including Andrew, Chris K., and the guys at Tuna Traffic, plus Cori and Stacey on admin, and Chris M. and Jennae on design) for working tirelessly on getting this thing up and running!

Giveaway to Celebrate: 3 Signed Copies of my Cookbook!

To help celebrate I am going to give away 3 signed (and personalized) copies of my #1 New York Times Best Selling Cookbook today! Since we want to be able to read through your comments about the site redesign please only enter this giveaway using the Rafflecopter form below. I repeat, comments will not count as an entry this time!

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Your website looks amazing and your food is changing the way my family eats. I was diabetic and am so grateful to have found recipes that will keep me healthy and help set a wonderful example for my kids. Thank you so much, you have no idea how much I appreciate this.

I am so excited about the specific dietary concerns component of the search! We have a little man with an extreme intolerance to milk (diarrhea/vomiting for 72 hours after small exposure) and it gets tedious to find Dairy Free recipes that don’t sub in all kinds of crazy chemical/GMO laden stuff. Thank you!

I really love the new design. It is seamless. Thank you, thank you for keeping the old school recipe index. The school gallery will be used heavily by me as I plan my month of meals, including school lunches. Great work and great message. My life is changed.

I totally love your site and your new design. (Thanks for putting back the “old school index) Your healthy living guidelines and all the help you give, has helped my family and I tremendously. You have made it possible to make the healthy changes in our lives. I love the personal feel of your sight including tidbits on your family as well as your journey to healthy living. Your site is my “go-to” when I meal plan. I have never been disappointed with your recipes and suggestions. Thank you so much!!!

Hard to believe you could make it ANY easier for us. You put my organizational skills to shame, and I’m extremely organized and efficient. Thanks for saving my sanity when I was told to give up just about everything I eat. Your meal plans, shopping lists, tips, and easy to access and navigate website have been a lifesaver. I appreciate your knowledge, abilities, and personality.

hi I recently joined however, I am allergic to wheat, buckwheat, flaxseed, barley, couscous, sunflower seeds and oil, milk products, eggs , mushrooms, corn of any kind , nuts, and some fish too do you have recipes for food intolerant ppl? I am finding it very very difficult as I eat smoothies with spinach, chia seeds, amaranth, ginger, cinnamon, whatever else I can put in ,,, and brown rice that is about it! I desperately need help. I have been making carob cookies with acorn squash and rice flour and water and baking soda. same with pumpkin and applesauce I made homemade with out the sugar. please help! warm regards !

This is awesome! I love the cleaner design & being able to use the tabs at the top to quickly get to the info I am most interested it. The deals/coupons all in one place with the details – perfect! The text & visual recipes and the dedicated school lunch section are all super helpful! Very user friendly – love this!

Love love love the new lunch menus that can be customized. What a great idea. And I love being able to search the menus based on what kind of meal I”m making. We try to do several meatless meals a week and I try to balance dairy/wheat heavy meals with those that are a little more meat/veggie heavy. Thanks!

I might be the only one, but I do not care for the site resolution/font sizing/whatever the correct term is. Everything is extremely large and it is hard to see much at one time without having to scroll. I provide the feedback in hopes that it is constructive and you might be able to alter, though I seem to be in the minority. I can zoom out though that is cumbersome to do every time I visit the site. This will impact my frequency of visiting the site.

I wish that there was a button on the main page, under the recent post section that would bring you to chronological groupings of older posts. I realize that if you click on one of the recent posts, there is a link at the bottom that brings you to the previous post, but it’s extremely tedious to have to go through one page at a time.

A lot of the links up top are really redundant. For instance, under the recipe tab, free meal plans and meal resources are also under free resources. Your cookbook is listed in two tabs as well. I understand the need for self-promotion, but I was really excited for more new content for a second. :( Also the free resources tab seems like a mix of left over 100 days of real food challenges and actual resources. The FAQ link back through these as well. So user flow seems to be redirected all over the place. Positive: I love the new image gallery and the fact old was kept too. The social media links up top are wonderful. And the overall look is a lot cleaner.

I like the new design, especially the popular posts and lunches. Easy to read, love the pics. I have to tell you — your lunch e-book made a big difference in the battle of eating healthy v. junk; thank you.

Love your recipes and very excited for the school lunch ideas. My kids aren’t in school yet but always looking for new lunch ideas. Checked out your book from the library and would love to have my own copy!

Congratulations on getting your website redesign finalized. I really like the searchability of the new site and the new galleries. The school lunch gallery is just great and inspirational. I have to admit that I loved the banner you had at the top previously, but I do agree having more prominent new tabs at the top makes for easier navigation of the site. Finally, about your profile picture, I really like the soft tone of your clothing rather than dark. I hope this is useful. Thank you for all you do. I love your site!

I am in the middle of a website redesign now for Cranford Dental thus appreciate the thought and work you put in to this. It looks great. Hopefully the end is in site for us. It will be great to have a web responsive site. Thanks.

I’m new at reviewing blogs and your’s is so informative, I wish I could have started from the beginning. I am changing my eating habits 360 degrees and found your site after free information wS Vailable. I will further research your site, and of course hope for free info, books, advice. Thank you, you sound very informative. Hope to use your site for future diet changes. Barbara Baker

My Cookbooks

I’m so excited to share all the info with you about the three cookbooks in my 100 Days of Real Food series. Each cookbook is unique and features its own content, from breaking down the science behind grains, to providing…